Acting on the basis of the Curia’s previous annulling judgement, the assembly authority decided to ban the event, notified by the organizers with the scheduled date of 28 June 2025, with the following purpose: “March for the equal rights of LGBTQI people on the 5th anniversary of the adoption of section 33. Section 33 came into force on 29 May 2020, depriving transgender people of the right to change their gender and related name. The purpose of the assembly is to stand up for the equal rights of transgender people and the LGBTQI community on the fifth anniversary of the act of law aiming at depriving them of their rights and to draw attention to the effects of exclusionist legislation over the past five years, particularly in view of the upcoming 30th Budapest Pride parade and the Government’s incitement of hatred against the LGBTQ community”. In its decision, the assembly authority referred to the fact that previous Pride assemblies were precedent events in comparison with the planned assembly and that photos taken at previous assemblies depicted scenes that would violate the prohibition set out in section 6/A of the Protection of Children Act. In addition, the defendant’s decision was also based on the fact that the purpose of the planned assembly also violated this legal prohibition.
Four organizations brought a legal action against the authority’s decision.
In its judgement delivered on 20 June 2025, the Curia rejected the plaintiffs’ legal action. It primarily found that the assembly authority had fulfilled its obligation to establish the facts and provide reasoning required for the repeated proceedings, but at the same time had reached an unreasonable conclusion in part of its decision based on the facts established.
According to the Curia, the contents of the authority’s decision do not prove, even taken as a whole, that previous Pride events can be considered “precedent” assemblies, or that, if the planned assembly were to be noted, the venue of the present assembly could serve as the 30th Budapest Pride. In this regard, the Curia emphasized that the authority placed excessive and disproportionate emphasis on formal aspects and that all the circumstances taken into account only serve as indirect evidence that, if the planned assembly were to be noted, the location of the present assembly could serve as the actual location for the 30th Budapest Pride.
Moreover, the Curia found the defendant’s conclusions regarding the purpose of the assembly to be valid. It established that the purpose of the assembly was, among others, to advocate for the right of transgender people to change their gender and name, and that a conceptual element of transgenderism is that the person in question defines their own gender differently from their sex at birth. In view of the foregoing, the defendant had reasonable doubts as to whether the stated purpose of the assembly in itself would violate, in the course of the holding of the event, the prohibitions set out in the Freedom of Assembly Act and the Protection of Children Act, and the organizers were unable to dispel these doubts during the consultation held by the assembly authority, as they provided only evasive answers to the relevant questions on this topic.
In accordance with its established practice, the Curia did not grant the plaintiffs’ motion to refer the case to the Constitutional Court or the Court of Justice of the European Union, as the three‑day deadline for adjudication specified in the Freedom of Assembly Act does not allow for the making of such references.
The full text of the Hungarian-language version of the decision is available on the website of Curia (https://kuria-birosag.hu/hu/gyulekezesi-jogorvoslati-ugyek).
Budapest, 20 June 2025
Press and Protocol Unit of the Curia of Hungary